Category Archives: Arts, Culture & Entertainment

Indian Muslims and Modernity

Hyderabad, TELANGANA :

THE Muslims-stirred to the acknowledgment of their actual situation in India especially after the Mutiny of 1857. The exit of the last Mughal monarch from the throne of Delhi was not only a symbol of their downfall but also an end to their existence as a separate and dominant group in Indian political life. A new phase in India’s history opened after the 1857 rebellion and the consequent dissolution of the East India Company. The era of the colonial Raj began with Queen Victoria’s proclamation of 1 November 1858. This benign document set a new tone of authority and conciliation. The post-Great Revolt period was probably the gloomiest period in the history of the Muslim community in the Indian Subcontinent. Muslims had created and taken an unmistakable part in the events of 1857, in the British eyes, whereas Hindus kept a low profile. Therefore, the Muslims were to bear, alone, the fault. Two factors influenced the creation of this image: the first was, of course, the nature of the movements led by Shariatullah and Syed Ahmad decades before the Mutiny; and second was the lingering imagery in the West of Muslims authored by European Christian perseveres during the Crusades (1095-1291). Quick and savage responses were to be incurred by the British administration, which would bring about a cruel reality for the Muslim people group. They lost their moorings, their confidence, their hope. And, for the first time, they realized with the anguish of bitterness that they were nothing but a weak, powerless, supine minority. This was the first casting of the seeds of nationalism, the first kindling of a feeling of loneliness and prostration, the first awakening to the need of solidarity. It was a period of gigantic political, social, economic, and social change that stirred a feeling of nationalism in the people groups of India. It was a period when a modernized Muslim scholarly and political initiative came to characterize and explain fundamental Muslim community and political necessities under the Raj, simultaneously as a beginning nationalist development was being fashioned by a more extensive working-class tip-top challenging British absolutism. The pressure among Hindus and Muslims started to arise in this period. At the point when it turned out to be extraordinarily disturbed after the mid-1920s, a practically unrecoverable hole opened up between what we may call Indian nationalism and Muslim rebellion, prompting the decisive division of Pakistan from the remainder of India in 1947.

It was a period when questions began emerging among the Ashraf classes about how Muslims could approach obliging western social impacts without negating the religious statutes of Islam. It was an issue stacked with subtleties, owing more to singular inclinations than a communitarian agreement. There were tones and layers of dark in trades between Muslims of various leanings on the suitable Islamic reaction toward the western experience. Modernity itself was a challenging thought, open to many fluctuated understandings. One of the main courses through which modernity contacted the Muslim people group of India was through the press. Also, it was one of the main channels through which educated Muslims aired their perspectives on the degree to which a social system informed by Islam could serenely get the inundation of western thoughts and innovation.

It was also a time when an extremely important character came into the frame, which went by the name of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. The founder and intellectual pioneer of Muslim nationalism. And it was this nationalism that evolved into becoming a movement that strived to carve out a separate Muslim-majority country in the subcontinent, and then further evolve to become Pakistani nationalism. Sir Syed is the one who acted with the tide of functions and established the Aligarh’s framework in the unfriendly, undoubtedly threatening milieu of the 1880s. Sir Syed, though by no means consciously made possible the emergence of two most outstanding Muslim leaders who had enthusiastically started out as staunch Indian nationalists, ended up finally at the threshold of Muslim nationalism. Belonging to a family which had roots in the old Muslim nobility, Sir Syed’s prolific authorship on the Muslim condition in India (during British rule) and his activism in the field of education, helped formulate nationalist ideas in the Muslims of the region. These ideas went on to impact and influence a plethora of Muslim intellectuals, scholars, politicians, poets, writers and journalists who then helped evolve Syed’s concept of Muslim nationalism into becoming the ideological doctrine and soul of the very idea of Pakistan. It was Sir Syed that had initiated the educational, intellectual, ideological, cultural and political trends and engendered tendencies that laid the groundwork for a Muslim renaissance in India. It is certainly true to say that Sir Syed was too much impressed by western rationalism and wanted to show that every doctrine of Islam could measure up to all principles of science, reason, and common science. In doing this, he was trying to be both rationalist and a good Muslim. He was one of the first Muslim scholars to offer a point by point answer to British authors who were presenting and introducing the tradition of Islam as something which was damaging and retrogressive. Sir Syed reminded the British that Islam was inalienably a progressive and modern religion, and it had empowered and encouraged the study of philosophy and the sciences. He actively campaigned for the adoption of modern Western education in India, particularly for Muslims. He both started and joined a number of organizations whose purpose was to make European knowledge accessible to young Muslims and other Indians in Urdu vernacular. In 1870 the appearance of Sayyid Ahmad Khan’s Tahzib-ul-Ikhlaq exhorting Muslims to reform their religious worldview had a catalytic effect on the newspaper business. Sir Syed reprimanded ulema for compelling the Muslims to dismiss science. He composed that Muslims needed new religious philosophy of Islam, which was discerning and dismissed all doctrinal ideas that were in conflict with good judgment and reason. Threatened by Sayyid Ahmad’s bold forays into the domain of Islam, many of his co-religionists ventilated their outrage by resorting to the print medium, colonial modernity’s most attractive gift for instantaneous self-promotion. The response to Sayyid Ahmad’s arguments on the compatibility of Islamic teachings and modern ideas was similarly sharp in the North-Western Provinces and Punjab. While in the North-Western Provinces numerous new names arose on the guide of Urdu journalism as pundits of the Aligarh school, Sayyid Ahmad’s religious thoughts were given an extreme dressing down in Punjab by the Ahl-I-Hadith’s Ishaat ul Sunnat. Sayyid Ahmad’s way to deal with Islamic religious philosophy and statute acquired him the gashing maltreatment of “orthodox” Muslim ulema. His advancement of ijtihad or free-thinking and dissatisfaction with regards to taqlid or adherence to the four definitive schools of Islamic statute set him at loggerheads with the ulema who effectively found in it a scarcely masked attack on their pre-famous status as the strict watchmen of the Muslim people group. His support of western knowledge and culture as well as loyally to the raj drew astringent remarks from Muslims joined to their cultural moorings and the ideal of an all-inclusive Muslim ummah. Among Sayyid Ahmad’s fiercest critics was the Persian scholar Jamaluddin al-Afghani who lived in India somewhere in the range of 1879 and 1882 and called for Hindu-Muslim solidarity as the initial step to dislodging British imperialism.

Jamal Al-Din Al-Afghani — a bright young political activist, journalist, reformer, and Afghan ideologist who showed up in India in 1855.  He one of the most prescient of modern Muslim thinkers, who had travelled and preached across British India. In contrast to the conventional ulema, Afghani didn’t perceive any great in turning inwards and drastically dismissing the modernity associated with British rule. His belief in the potency of a revived Islamic civilization in the face of European domination fundamentally impacted the development of Muslim thought in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He recognized the matchless quality of Western education, however, accentuated that Muslims should grasp it to improve their parcel and afterward reverse the situation against Western imperialism by ousting it and setting up a worldwide Islamic caliphate. Al-Afghani held that Hindus and Muslims should work together to overthrow British rule in India. He worked to transform Islam into a lever against western imperialism. Afghani was the prototype of the modern fundamentalist. Like Sir Syed, he also had been influenced by western rationalism and the ideological mode of western thought. Afghani welded a traditional religious hostility towards unbelievers to a modern critique of western imperialism and an appeal for the unity of Islam, and while he inveighed against the west, he urged the adoption of those western sciences and institutions that might strengthen Islam. Afghani saw Western innovation as a solution to recover regenerate the Muslims, not as an approach to assist them in discovering a spot inside colonial settings yet to completely comprehend and afterward eradicate imperialism. Afghani was rather progressive and modernistic in his thinking. A contemporary English admirer described Afghani as the leader of Islam’s liberal religious reform movement. The pan-Islamist thought which he spearheaded esteemed the significance of changing and reforming the Muslim mentality through modern scholarly methods, and afterward utilizing the transformed as a weapon against the political incomparability of Western imperialism.

Another prominent sage of the modern Muslim intellectual movements of the time was Justice Ameer Ali. His History of the Saracens and Spirit of Islam enjoyed a wide readership both in India and Britain, but his target audience was the Western public. He wished to familiarize this public with the history and religion of Islam, and he was successful at that. He accepted that there were issues that made it problematic for his Western contemporaries to appreciate Islam as a religion suited to the needs of the modern world, but he remained unapologetic on central Islamic beliefs. Chiragh Ali (1844–95), a lawyer from Hyderabad, argued for the reform of Muslim civil law and the establishment of a humane Islamic law based on the Quran rather than on later accretions and interpretations. Altaf Husain Hali’s The Musaddas described the drama of Islam, its glories and its tragedies, in simple, sensuous, and passionate poetry; and, at the same time, he highlighted the need for the reform of Muslim society. The Musaddas became a best-seller in Urdu-speaking India, and it is still read and enjoyed by thousands even today. The scope and spirit of Urdu literature augmented during this period. Akbar Allahabadi (1846–1921), acclaimed for his gnawing parody, censured Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan’s zing for Western culture and analyzed Muslims aping Western ways of life as ‘playing out monkeys’ for their British coaches. The Urdu weekly by Agra Akhbar, distributed by Khwajah Asif Ali denounced the Muslim Anglo-Oriental University conspire at Aligarh as ‘eccentric and illusory’. Much good Urdu prose was being written in this period; however, three specific improvements significantly advanced its reach and quality. The first one was the development of journalism. Despite the fact that the Urdu press returns to the late eighteenth century, it started genuinely to thrive and flourish from the 1870s onwards. Papers like Akhbar-e Am in Lahore (1870), Oudh Punch in Lucknow (1877–1936), and Paisa Akhbar in Delhi (1888) revolutionized journalism by receiving new patterns, for example, eye-getting features, notices, modest value, newspaper design, alongside the publication aptitudes of ironical composition, spontaneous extemporization, and powerful questioning. Hostile to British assessments were regularly communicated in such political papers as the Zamindar of Lahore, the Al-Hilal, and Al-Balagh, began by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in 1912 and 1915, and the Hamdard edited by Muhammad Ali. The second significant advancement in Urdu writing was the introduction of the novel. Finally, we must record the rise of Urdu drama in this period.

To sum up, Sir Syed received harsh criticism. His religious naysayers remained positioned in their mosques and madrassahs. Thus, the greater part of his religious adversaries couldn’t discover a spot in the school that he set up in Aligarh. This school evolved into becoming a college and then an institution which began to produce a specific Muslim world-class and metropolitan bourgeoisie who might go on to dominate Muslim nationalist thought in India and eventually decide the course in 1906 when the consciousness of Muslim nationalism took practical form when a deputation of Indian Muslims – Shimla Deputation  – held a meeting with the Governor-General Lord Minto in Shimla and secured the viceroy’s consent in respect of separate electorate for Muslims.


The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Kashmir Observer

  • The author is a student at University of Hyderabad

source: http://www.kashmirobserver.com / Kashmir Observer / Home / by Inayathullah Din, Guest Author / December 18th, 2020

Dawakhana team distributes free medicines

Aligarh, UTTAR PRADESH :

Aligarh :

In a patient-friendly move to meet community health needs, free Unani medicines were distributed to patients from the lower economic strata by a team of Dawakhana Tibbiya College (DTC), Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). The free medicines were dispensed during the inaugural of a Unani Medicine Clinic in Jamalpur locality.

“We found that many poor patients were struggling to get medicines. Some of them have been without any income and couldn’t afford the health facilities. It prompted us to distribute free medicines to people in dire need,” said Prof Salma Ahmed (Member-in-Charge, DTC).

She distributed the medicines with the DTC Marketing Team headed by Mr Shariq Azam.

Former Dean, Faculty of Unani Medicine, Prof Abdul Mannan; Prof Shamim Ahmad (Department of Agriculture Management) and Prof Mohd Khalid Azam (Department of Business Administration) stressed that this free medicine campaign in the wake of the pandemic is a big boon for the financially backward patients.

They added that it is our duty to provide the financially weaker sections with free essential health services including medicines.

source: http://www.amu.ac.in / Aligarh Muslim University / Home> AMU News / by Public Relations Office, AMU / August 27th, 2021

Jamiat Hands 66 Newly-Built Houses to Muzaffarnagar Riot Victims

Muzaffarnagar, UTTAR PRADESH :

So far, Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind has constructed 311 houses, mosques and schools at different places in the riot-affected district of UP

Maulana Arshad Madani handed over the keys of the houses to the victims of Muzaffarnagar riots

New Delhi :

President of Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind Maulana Arshad Madani on Wednesday handed over keys of newly-built houses to 66 families who lost their homes in the deadly Muzaffarnagar riots in 2013, the group said in a statement.

Thousands of families were displaced due to riots. “These people were still living in extreme despair in different places. Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind has continued its relief and assistance from the very beginning as per its long tradition,” the Jamiat statement said, adding the group has constructed 311 houses, mosques and schools at different places in the district and the victims have been settled in them.

In March 2019, Maulana Madani had inaugurated the proposed Jamiat Colony consisting of 151 houses in Bagowali village of Muzaffarnagar. “At that time, the keys of 85 houses were handed over to the riot victims,” said the statement. “Today, Maulana Madani handed over the keys of the remaining 66 houses to the victims. A school for the religious education of the children of the victims and a mosque have also been built in the same colony.”

So far, 466 houses have been constructed for the Muzaffarnagar riot victims, and they have been resettled in them.

Addressing a grand function for handing over the keys of the houses to the beneficiaries, Maulana Madani said that “the riots in the city of Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh can also be listed as horrific because for the first time, a large number of Muslims had left their homes due to the fear of their lives. In these riots, the police showed the partiality which caused the killing and looting in the rural areas of Muzaffarnagar.”

source: http://www.clarionindia.net / Clarion / Home> Big Story> India. Indian Muslims / by Team Clarion / August 25th, 2021

AMU Student Team Wins Prize For Covid Awareness Video

Aligarh, UTTAR PRADESH :

A video created by a team of students of the Department of Social Work, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) on confronting an increasingly urgent challenge in the fight against the Covid pandemic was selected for the first prize in the ‘Regional Level Video Competition for COVID-19 Awareness in various Regional Languages/Dialects in Uttar Pradesh’.  The team comprised of students namely Kapil Sharma, Nijda Zehra, Tanvi Gautam, Ilma Parveen and Anuj Sharma.

The team had participated in the competition of the National Coordinating Institution – IIT Delhi under the Unnat Bharat Abhiyan for the region-wise celebration of the 75th Independence Day (Azadi ka Amrut Mahotsav) throughout the country which had experts from IIT Delhi and Regional Coordinating Institutions (RCIs) as judges. 

“This video is our effort to spread a word of awareness. It shows the importance of vaccinations, hand sanitisation, face masks, avoidance of crowded places and close contacts with people, staying at home if you are unwell and getting information from trusted sources,” said the team members. 

Congratulating the student team, Prof Naseem Ahmad Khan (Chairman, Department of Social Work and Nodal Officer, Unnat Bharat Abhiyan, AMU) said, “AMU community stands proud of these students, who are creating awareness content to reach out to the masses. I wish them more success in future endeavours”.

source: http://www.amu.ac.in / Aligarh Muslim University / Home> AMU News / by Public Relations Office, AMU / August 27th, 2021

Teenager Umaimah—a promising painter

NEW DELHI :

My name is Umaimah Islam, I’m currently studying in 9th class. I was born in Delhi. When I was around 11 years old, I suddenly got interested in arts and paintings. Now, I’ve been painting for almost 2 years. I’m a self-taught artist and I know have a lot more to learn and improve upon.

Nature’s beauty inspires me to paint. I used to paint sceneries and landscapes, sometimes getting ideas by the work of senior professional artists and sometimes adding my own ideas as well but I used to be really insecure that I’m not doing good enough, but what I think that made an improvement in my work was the appreciation and encouragement by my elders.

Now, when I compare my previous artworks with recent ones, I myself feel really happy seeing the marked improvement. I’m trying to constantly get better and make my parents proud.

A year ago I also an account on instagram @Umaimah_Art, because of how curious I was and I really wanted to see if people like to see my artworks or is it that my family and friends praise my work just to make me feel good. The response is good and people have started following my account and the feedback is good. I’m happy with it as well.

That’s it for now. Thank you so much, I’m glad that I got a chance to introduce myself and tell about my passion.

More paintings at https://www.instagram.com/umaimah_art/

source: http://www.milligazette.com / The Milli Gazette / Home> News> Family & Kids / by The Milli Gazette Online / August 15th, 2021

Book of true historical value documenting Bhopal State’s military history released

Bhopal, MADHYA PRADESH :

A book entitled Nizaam-I-Bhopal, highlighting the forgotten facets of Bhopal’s military history, penned by Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Milan Lalit Kumar Naidu, PVSM, AVSM YSM, the former Vice-Chief of Army Staff, was recently released.

The book was released by current Vice-Chief of Army Staff Lt. Gen. C. P. Mohanty at Dronachal, the headquarters of Sudarshan Chakra Corps, in Bhopal.

Lt. Gen. Naidu’s untiring efforts gave shape to his book “Nizaam-I-Bhopal”. It took five years of research, poring through Farsi (Persian) and Urdu records that led to the book.

It is only befitting that this wistful narrative is brought out by Bhopal’s very own son, Milan Naidu, who personifies that gentility, sophistication and aesthetic refinement to do justice to any literature to do with Bhopal. As a thoroughbred officer-and-a-gentleman with the highest military credentials and an illustrious career behind him only could have produced such an exquisite and masterful body of work Nizaam-I-Bhopal. The unforgiving ravages of time, circumstances and dominant instincts that governed its leadership from time-to-time, have been minutely analysed, explained and postulated for posterity. The rich, unsung and often unknown facets and tapestry of Bhopal’s military traditions, legacy and its continuing imprints are generously captured, documented and brought alive in this book.

In the book “Nizaam-I-Bhopal” Lt. Gen. Milan Naidu (Retd.) has charted the transformation story of rag-tag forces of the Indian princely states, from the 18th century to that modern Army. He has lucidly described the socio-economic-politico environment which existed in those times and analysed the evolution, rules, service conditions, ceremonials and battles fought by state forces, with special reference to Bhopal State.

The Book is a historical analysis of the Militaries of the Bhopal Princely State. Bhopal had the singular position in the comity of Princely States in British India, with a 175 years’ continuous line of Begums rulers. They were visionaries, educated and erudite. They displayed tremendous administrative ability, leadership qualities and diplomatic acumen, coupled with comparable skill at horse riding and arms. These Rulers set the tone of the Militaries and its motivation. The Bhopal Battalion, as part of the Indian Expeditionary Force, was the first non-Europeans to have disembarked at Marseilles in France to fight the War on foreign shores battling the weather and enemy alike.

A Bhopal battalion was even awarded one of only nine Victoria Crosses given out to Indian soldiers in Mesopotamia in the Great War. That same unit is part of Pakistan now. In the 1965 India-Pak war this battalion was awarded “Nishan-e-Haider”. The icing on the cake was that its Militaries were demobilized in a peaceful and a placid manner, to be absorbed by the Civvy Street in a symbiotic equation.

With such historical genesis and background of the State Forces, Lt. Gen. Naidu (Retd.) helps us to understand how much of our present Army developed its traditions, values and ethos; the singular character which it win the Kargil war despite the severe adversities.

This book is of true historical value, especially of the painstaking research, much from many primary sources, obtaining information from abroad (including Pakistan), interviewing progeny of the soldiers, and finally putting all of it in order.

The author’s observations on the governance and policies of the rulers help us to trace the developmental process of the state. How these issues impinged at various times on the States Forces is reflected subtly. Some of the anecdotes narrated in the book are hilarious and some quite poignant.

Kalim Akhtar, a historian and researcher says: “It is interesting to read how the Bhopal army collaborated with the British and fought the World Wars as well. It presents a true picture of history after years of research of Farsi (Persian) and Urdu records maintained in libraries, as far as the UK. It will be of great interest to lovers of history and especially those who love Bhopal.”

While Iram Khan, a housewife, in her comments about the book says: “It is well researched and attention grasping and would recommend it to anyone who has even a slight curiosity about the old world charm that the city of Bhopal still exudes”.

Meanwhile, the author of the book, Milan Naidu joined the National Defence Academy and was commissioned into the famed Rajput Regiment in 1967. He served for 41 years, holding several key positions – including worked as Military Attaché in Germany; Commanded 5th Battalion the Rajput Regiment in Sri Lanka; Commander of the Corps in Ladakh and GOC-in-C Army Training and Doctrine Command at Shimla before being made the Army Vice-Chief. He attended Canadian Forces Command and Staff College Course in Toronto. After retirement, he was appointed a member of the Armed Forces Tribunal at New Delhi.

His other assignments include: Working Chairperson of the Organising Committee for the Military World Games 2007; Member of the Executive Council of the Indian Golf Union; Chairperson of the Centre for Land Warfare Studies; Member of the Executive Council of the United Service Institution of India.

Lt. Gen. Naidu (Retd.) was born and brought up in Bhopal, the state capital of Madhya Pradesh. He did his schooling from Bhopal passing out X Class (Matric) from St Josephs Higher Secondary School, Bhopal in 1963. I may mention here that he was seven years senior to me in the school where I too studied in the sixties.

He did his M.Sc. in Defence Studies from Madras University in1984-85. Later on he did M. Phil in Defence Management in 1989-90. He completed Post Graduate Diploma in Environment and Ecology, Barkatullah University, Bhopal in 1996-97.

He won the Junior Small Bore in the National Shooting Championship in 1963. He was awarded ‘Shooting Blue’ in NDA.

source: http://www.maeeshat.in / maeeshat.in / Home> Books> Business / by Pervez Bari / August 02nd, 2021

Meet Netha Hussain: Wikimedian of the Year 2021 Honourable Mention winner

KERALA :

(Adam Novak CC BY-SA 3.0).

This year’s seven Wikimedian of the Year award winners were announced today at the 2021 virtual Wikimania convening .

Read the interview below with Dr. Netha Hussain, recipient of the Honourable Mention Award.

Dr. Netha Hussain has been a Wikimedia volunteer for over a decade, as well as a medical doctor and researcher who has contributed to English and Malayalam languages of Wikipedia, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, and Meta-Wiki. 

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Netha wrote, updated, and translated dozens of Wikipedia articles to ensure reliable information about the pandemic is available for everyone. She also recently launched a project to improve information about vaccine safety topics on Wikipedia, helping combat misinformation. In the process, Netha has collaborated with Wikimedians around the world and inspired many others to ensure information is verifiable and reliable. 

“The idea of sharing free knowledge with millions of people around the world excites me, and this serves as a motivation to keep doing more.”

Additionally, Netha has contributed to outreach and research surrounding the diversity of participation and content on Wikimedia projects, particularly of the gender gap. In 2020, she was recognized by Red Hat as a 2020 Women in Open Source Award winner.

The Wikimedian of the Year Honourable Mention award recognizes exceptional Wikimedians who already have a strong presence in the movement, as well as public exposure such as press coverage, local recognition, and national titles. pix02

This recognition is one of seven awards made this year to celebrate contributors who have made an exceptional impact on our movement. The awards were announced at this year’s virtual Wikimania celebration by Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales (watch the announcement!). 

“Dr. Hussain is a role model in the Wikimedia movement for her staggering medical and scientific contributions to Wikipedia, contributions she balances alongside her own medical career. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, her work has brought increased visibility to Wikipedia’s unique role as a source for reliable public health information about the virus and the vaccines. In addition, her constant advocacy to address the gender gap and her support for Indic communities demonstrate the values of collaboration and contribution that are integral to our movement.”

– Jimmy Wales

We spoke with Netha to learn more about her experiences and perspectives on the Wikimedia movement. Here are some highlights: 

Q: Can you share a favorite memory from your time contributing to Wikimedia?

“Creating my first article is a special memory that I cherish to this day. The process did take a long time because, back in 2010, I was running on a 128 kbps internet connection in a six year old desktop computer on an old version of the browser.

I wanted to create an article about an Indian cuisine called chutney in Malayalam language Wikipedia. I wasn’t sure about the rules one has to follow while editing, but I thought I will make a try anyway. I created some text and saved it as a new Wikipedia page. The next day, I was surprised to find out that other editors have improved upon that page by adding media and more content. This was the first nudge which paved the way for the rest of my Wikimedia volunteering journey.

Another memory was when I saw that a pathology image that I added to Wikimedia Commons was re-used on a prominent medical website. This made me reflect on the scarcity of good quality medical images in online sources, and prompted me to start the first of its kind GLAM [galleries, libraries, archives, and museums] collaboration with Government Medical College, Kozhikode.”

Q: What motivates you to contribute to Wikimedia projects?

“I am motivated by the satisfaction of having done a small part in making the world a better place. The idea of sharing free knowledge with millions of people around the world excites me, and this serves as a motivation to keep doing more.”

Netha Hussain presenting at the Wikimedia Diversity Conference in 2013 (Christopher Schwarzkopf (WMDE), CC BY-SA 3.0)

Q: How has Wikipedia helped tackle COVID-19 disinformation and misinformation?

“Wikimedia was able to play a large role in tackling COVID-19 disinformation because of its people, technology, and policies. 

The people who make up the Wikimedia movement are experts from a wide variety of subject areas. They perform tasks such as copyediting, structuring, and adding rich media to Wikimedia pages. Wikimedia has robust policies around verifiability, neutrality, and original research, which warrants the use of sources with high credibility. The technology used in Wikimedia provides a simple interface for editing and has provisions to counter vandalism. 

All these factors taken together, as well as learnings from the movement’s previous experience in responding to crisis situations helped Wikimedia tackle disinformation effectively.”

“It is hard to imagine all the ways that Wikimedia will influence the future of the ecosystem of free knowledge in medicine, but I am convinced that Wikimedia will continue to occupy a central role in the process.”

Q: How does your work on Wikipedia contribute to the future of medicine?

“I was a medical student when I started contributing to Wikimedia in 2010. At that time, I worked on concepts that I learned at medical school. Later on, I focused on building content around specific topic areas. My current focus is on creating content related to COVID-19 and vaccination. The articles created by me in English and Malayalam languages are being edited several times by other editors and are becoming richer and more comprehensive by the day. I think that these articles will continue to educate (and perhaps also entertain and enlighten) people in the future. 

The text and media that I and fellow editors created will continue to be remixed, curated and magnified several times by third party sources such as search engines, websites, and virtual assistants. Additionally, the edit history of the work that we performed on Wikimedia is likely to serve as a historical documentation of how events unfolded in time and how scientific evidence changed over time. 

Our discussions on talk pages would serve as a reminder for how and why we made some decisions regarding the policy or structure of Wikimedia entities. The metadata of our edits are likely to act as data points for researching about trends and patterns in editing, paving way for insightful conclusions regarding the growth and diversification of Wikimedia projects. The structured data contributed by us would serve as the database for search engine and machine learning algorithms. It is hard to imagine all the ways that Wikimedia will influence the future of the ecosystem of free knowledge in medicine, but I am convinced that Wikimedia will continue to occupy a central role in the process.”

“In the process of researching health conditions and treatment options, people…eventually to Wikimedia projects. Therefore, it is important that Wikimedians should work in the interest of public health.”

Q: What is Wikipedia’s role in public health?

“Wikipedia is the largest non-profit website in terms of pageviews. Wikipedia has become a popular source of healthcare information because of its simplicity of content, higher ranking in search results, easiness in accessibility, availability of citations, presence of photo/video illustrations, ability to edit quickly and possibility to navigate in multiple language editions. 

Most often, in the process of researching health conditions and treatment options, people go online, and eventually to Wikimedia projects. Therefore, it is important that Wikimedians should work in the interest of public health and invest resources for making its medical content reliable, comprehensive and updated.”

“I wish everyone knew that they have something to contribute to the Wikimedia movement.”

Q: What is one thing you wish everyone knew about Wikimedia projects?

“I wish everyone knew that they have something to contribute to the Wikimedia movement. People usually shy away from contributing to Wikimedia because they think that the expertise they have is trivial or irrelevant for Wikimedia.

We need not only content creators and curators, but those interested in technology, outreach, fundraising, strategizing, to name a few. We need to make non-content related contributions more visible and rewarding so that everyone knows what is possible for them to do on Wikimedia projects, and enjoys doing what they love or care about.”


Congratulations, Netha! 

About the 2021 Wikimedian of the Year Awards

The Wikimedian of the Year is an annual award that honours contributors to Wikimedia projects, including Wikipedia editors, to highlight major achievements within the Wikimedia movement in the previous year. The tradition dates back to 2011 and has evolved since then in dynamic ways to welcome and celebrate Wikimedians from different backgrounds and experiences. This year’s celebration is bigger and more inclusive than ever before, recognizing seven exceptional contributors to the Wikimedia movement in six categories , including Newcomer of the Year, 20th Year Honouree, Rich Media and Tech contributors, and Honourable Mentions, as well as the Wikimedian of the Year. 

*This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

source: http://www.diff.wikimedia.org / Wikimedia.org / Home> Wikimania 2021 / by Wikimedia Foundation / August 15th, 2021

The Begum and the Dastan: Of History and its Many Labyrinths

UTTAR PRADESH :

Tarana Husain Khan. — IANS

Khan says that the story her grandmother told stayed with her for years and when she started researching the Rampur culture, it kept coming back to haunt her while she walked through the old settlement of Rampur city.

New Delhi :

She doesn’t really remember when she heard the story of the woman she named Feroza Begum in her book. Perhaps it was one of those tales her grandmother narrated when the children gathered around in the courtyard of their rambling home. “We loved to listen to the stories of bygone years as they had an immediacy, a reference point – about some relative or friend we knew,” she recalls.

Author Tarana Husain Khan, whose book ‘The Begum and the Dastan’ (Tranquebar) recently hit the shelves goes back to the year 1897 where in the princely state of Sherpur, Feroza Begum, beautiful and wilful, defies her family to attend the sawani celebrations at Nawab Shams Ali Khan’s Benazir Palace. Feroza is kidnapped and detained in the Nawab’s glittering harem, her husband is forced to divorce her, and her family disowns her. Reluctantly, Feroza marries the Nawab, and is compelled to negotiate the glamour and sordidness of the harem.

Khan says that the story her grandmother told stayed with her for years and when she started researching the Rampur culture, it kept coming back to haunt her while she walked through the old settlement of Rampur city.

“I wanted to know how Feroza lived her life, her thoughts and aspirations and her death. I was surprised by my emotional investment in the ancient tale. It made me feel suffocated and vulnerable at the same time maybe because it was a sort of cautionary tale for young girls,” she tells IANS.

Talk to her about the metamorphosis of Feroza’s character — how she starts to ‘accept’ the circumstances with the Nawab, and if a modern reader would be comfortable with that, and Khan asserts that the protagonist’s options were limited by her predicament.

“She was confined in the Nawab’s harem and her family had abandoned her. How did a woman in the late nineteenth century deal with such circumstances? It might be difficult for the ‘modern’ or ‘feminist’ person to understand her actions. I didn’t want Feroza to be a modern woman dressed in ancient clothes. I didn’t want to project these sensibilities to Feroza’s character. In fact, I had to restrain myself from putting my words and thoughts into her persona. She belonged to a certain time in history and her actions and thoughts had to mirror those times.”

The author, who has weaved two timelines in the book, insists that at the core of ‘The Begum and the Dastan’ is the question of patriarchy. “I began with writing Feroza Begum’s story but the question of the state of the girl child in small town India had been troubling me because of my first hand experience teaching young children. Ameera who lives in modern times poses the question — has anything changed for the young girls today. I wanted my readers to think beyond Feroza’s plight. Patriarchy affects young girls in Indian homes by restricting their vision of themselves as well as posing physical constraints. So the life of the veiled Begums and their limited options has a modern counterpoint in Ameera’s life,” she says.

While researching Feroza’s story, Khan realised that there were many women who had disappeared from the pages of history and whose voices inhabited oral history. There were women who left their imprint on political decisions and on cultural developments but rarely found mention in cisgender male histories. “In giving cadence to some of these voices, this book was born,” says Khan, whose previous books include ‘I’m Not a Bimbette’ (2015) and its sequel ‘Cyber Bullied’ (2020).

Currently, Khan is researching on Rampur culinary archives, which is a part of ‘Forgotten Foods: Culinary Memory, Local Heritage and Lost Agricultural Varieties in India’, a project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council that brings together researchers and practitioners.

“So my translation of nineteenth century Persian cookbooks meets the skill set of the khansama and we create something that is workable. The ultimate aim is to expand the repertoire of the local khansamas and enhance their employability. This should also popularize the ‘forgotten’ dishes of Rampur cuisine.The penultimate aim is to publish a cookbook of the forgotten dishes and to showcase the dishes at a cultural fest, the ‘Jashn e Benazir’, which we plan to host in Rampur in 2022.”

Editing a book on Rampur cuisine and culture which is slated for publication in April 2022, Khan is also writing a novel. “It is still in its initial stages. I am essentially a storyteller, a dastango like Mirza Kallan, a character in my book, who spins tales till the boundaries of reality and fiction blur,” she concludes. — IANS

source: http://www.clarionindia.net / Clarion India / Home> Books / by IANS / August 02nd, 2021

Meet Kaif Ali, who is housing the homeless with his ‘architecture for poor’ idea

NEW DELHI :

Born and brought up in New Delhi, twenty-year-old Kaif Ali is an architecture student at Faculty of Architecture & Ekistics, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. Ali was honoured with The Diana Award 2021 for his work on Covid-19 Innovation–Space era recently, which is a module for demountable and portable shelter space for Covid-19 era. This is his story.

New Delhi :

Every child has drawn their family with a house in the background and most probably made sandcastles at beaches too. However, in the grownup’s world, not everyone can have a house built like that. Twenty-year-old Kaif Ali, an undergraduate student of Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi after entering the world of architecture found out that homelessness is a major issue in the world and there are many without proper houses.

Born and brought up in New Delhi, twenty-year-old Kaif Ali told TwoCircles.net, “Just 200 meters away from my apartment is a settlement made above the sewage lines. In nights, the people there sleep on footpaths since snakes sneak out of sewage.”

Ali could not help noticing how unjustly the metropolitan city is majorly designed commercially for a few per cent of the population. After witnessing these inequalities, Ali wanted to take up architecture as a profession and develop a sustainable model.

Beyond survival
Homeless people are of many types, which include urban poor, migrant labourers and refugees. However, the government made arrangements for these homeless people can barely be called a home. There is no privacy nor any sense of security as sought by a family since most facilities are gender-separated. Open cooking and sanitation, poor waste management, unavailability of electricity and potable water, the list go on.

Ali recollects that it was a documentary called “Cry for Syria” that sensitized him into the refugee crisis. As an attempt to address the issue, Ali went on to design shelter spaces for Syrian refugees, during his early college days.

When asked whether he is concerned about these temporary shelter spaces becoming the permanent settlement of refugees and others, as is the norm, Ali said that his concept of shelter is a home for living and not for mere survival. Therefore, along with houses, Ali also designs schools, gyms, and other recreational spaces using the same modular technology, which facilitates easy assembling and dismantling.

Quoting a few success stories of refugee assimilation with the host country, Ali believes that if refugees are housed holistically, they will not remain on the fringes. “Shelter is the start of all,” he said.

From housing to quarantining
For the last two years, Ali has invested himself in designing shelter spaces for the homeless. As the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, Ali witnessed the dire demand for quarantining thousands in cramped up cities.

That is how he began working with his project last March and designed a portable intermediary quarantine facility of 2.5m x 6m, using PUF panels or shipping containers, which can be assembled with ease, have massive room for expansion, with natural ventilation and 6 layers of social distancing.

The facility can also be later used as refugee camps or disaster relief camps.

Kaif Ali was awarded the international Diana Award 2021 for the same. His design follows all Covid-19 protocols and is more efficient than home quarantine or mass quarantining facilities.

Ali’s quests stem from his immediate realities. Even his intermediary quarantine shelter came up observing the spread of the virus in enclosed spaces through the air, even before WHO confirmed the spread through the air. “That is the power of observation and study. I apprehended that Covid-19 would spread through the air from my study and by keeping this in mind, I have designed the quarantine facility,” Ali said.

Thinking architecture ‘out of the box’
Having varied interests, Ali is good at juggling different pursuits. The twenty-year-old has taken home several awards in architecture and photography. It is the introduction to various international competitions that expanded Ali’s network.

Upon winning Climate Innovation Lab conducted by Climate Technology Centre and Network, Ali has been receiving mentorship of Biplab Ketan Paul, IIT Kanpur incubation mentor and social entrepreneur.

Referring to Ali’s Covid-19 relief work, Paul said proudly, “Kaif Ali is a good samaritan.”

Soon, Ali’s design would shelter the people of Lagos in Nigeria. His project has received appreciation across the world from architects of Germany, Iran, South Africa, Turkey, the US, & Brazil. Ali has also featured in the United Nations top 11 emerging innovation start-ups solving climate action.

Twenty-year-old Ali has not shied away from approaching several state governments. After the Karnataka government appreciated him, organizations working with the Maharashtra government are willing to implement his project.

To make his designs financially viable, Ali said he uses his father’s counsel, who is in the construction business. “His advice comes in handy, especially when deciding the materials and other factors. It is the context that is my foremost priority,” Ali said, elaborating that climate and clients’ context guides his design.

Moreover, Ali aspires to make the language of architecture accessible to common people. His drawings are easily readable for policymakers and politicians alike. “Future architectures cannot limit themselves to space and cost crises alone. In times of rising refugees of climate, wars and poverty, expanding socially responsible entrepreneurial perspective in architecture is a must,” concludes Ali.

source: http://www.twocircles.net / TwoCircles.net / Home> Lead Story / by Arfa Backer, TwoCircles.net / July 30th, 2021

Riyaz Bhat – ‘The Rugman of Doha’ who is weaving rugs & bringing his culture to Qatar

Srinagar, JAMMU & KASHMIR, INDIA / Doha, QATAR :

On Al Mirqab Street at Al Nasser is a tiny carpet store that’s been there since 2000. Its neighboring stores come and go but this one hasn’t changed its location for 21 years. Now, sandwiched between a shawarma restaurant and a telecom shop, the store regularly brings handmade rugs and carpets from Kashmir and Afghanistan. The store is owned and managed by a man known as ‘The Rugman of Doha’. Why is he known by this name and what is special about his carpets and rugs?

The Rugman For Handicrafts shop on Al Mirqab Street, Al Nasser.

The ILoveQatar.net (ILQ) team reached out to ‘The Rugman of Doha’, Riyaz Bhat, to learn more about his passion for tribal rugs and how he sees each rug he brings to Qatar as a work of art. Let’s get to know him better!

ILQ: Please tell us something about yourself.

The Rugman of Doha’. / Image credit: Riyaz Bhat

Riyaz: My name is Riyaz Bhat. I was born and raised in Srinagar City in the valley of beautiful Kashmir in India. Since I was a child, I have always been fascinated by rugs handcrafted by my family of weavers — how they would fill tiny knots one by one with natural fibers like silk or wool, and then how those tiny knots on looms would take the shape of a beautiful carpet with amazing patterns. When I was in grade 8, I was given permission to use the loom and eventually learned how to weave rugs.

After I finished college I was planning to go for higher education and take a business course, but my destiny had something else planned for me. When I read the story of the nomad tribes of Central Asia and learned about how they make quality handmade rugs, I decided to travel to Afghanistan to see the process myself. So, in 1987 I started my adventure to war-torn Afghanistan. It really was a difficult journey, but very rewarding. I witnessed how the talented nomad women of the region would weave the most beautiful and fascinating rugs, which they would trade for food and money. I traveled back and forth to Afghanistan for more than 10 years, and as I learned more about designs, patterns, and dyes, my passion for carpets and rugs grew more as well.

ILQ: How long have you been here in Qatar and how has your journey been so far?

Riyaz: In 1999, while I was working with my uncle in Pakistan, a customer visiting from Doha came to our store and bought a few rugs from me. He introduced Qatar to me as a fast-growing and developing country and encouraged me to open up a store here. At first, I hesitated but destiny again planned one more great adventure for me. I landed at the old Doha Airport for the first time in October 1999 with a 14-day business visa, and that visa was extended and extended, and I’m happy to say that it’s my 22nd year now in this wonderful country.

ILQ: How did you get the title ‘The Rugman of Doha’?

Riyaz: After searching for many places here, I finally found a location for my store. On 4 April 2000, I opened my showroom at Al Mirqab Street in Al Nasser and have never changed location since then. During the first few days, customers started coming and my store was introduced to a great group of people from VCUarts Qatar. Among them was Cathleen Ferguson Huntington who upon entering my shop saw me and said, “Are you the Rugman?” And that’s how the ‘The Rugman of Doha’ was born.

ILQ: What do you value most about what you do? Why do you love what you do?

Riyaz Bhat weaving a silk rug on his family loom in Kashmir, India. / Image credit: Riyaz Bhat

Riyaz: Weaving rugs has been my passion since childhood, and I really love and value what I do. I value the times I’m with tribal groups and get to introduce nomad women designers and their amazing artworks to the world. By doing this I feel satisfied with what I have done in my life.

I also welcome students and small groups of people in our store for a free discussion about rug art and history. I enjoy discussing and providing information about the history of rugs and the beautiful story behind each rug that we have. I am thankful that I am gifted with the talent to weave and tell important stories.

ILQ: How will you describe your shop to people who’ve never seen it before?

Waji Khan, cousin of Riyaz Bhat, holds a 150-year-old pure wool handmade Shiraz tribal rug. It’s a wedding sufra (dining) rug, made by the mother of the bride.

Riyaz: My store, The Rugman, is not just a carpet store. It is rather a learning class for art and history and I bet once you listen to our stories and see our collections, you are going to love it for a lifetime. Each carpet has a story. Each rug is an art.

ILQ: What motivated you to bring your carpets to Qatar?

Riyaz: As soon as I arrived in Doha, I went around the city and strolled to see different places. I went to markets and to the lone mall during that time – The Mall at D Ring road. I saw one rug store inside that mall with many customers. I also went to the old downtown where there were more rug stores, and I saw people buying rugs. That’s when I decided to open a store here.

ILQ: Was it easy to set up a carpet store here in Qatar?

Riyaz: Yes, at that time it was very easy to open a store and I was very lucky to find a great sponsor who also became my investment partner. He helped in every way to open my shop. Qatar is one lovely country, and living and working here has been a lot easier compared to other countries and has been very encouraging for my business.

ILQ: What kind of rugs and carpets will people find in your shop?

Riyaz: We have extremely high-quality handmade rugs from my family of weavers. Besides that, we also have genuine handmade rugs made by nomads like Turkmen, Kazak, Balouch, Uzbek, Shirwan, Ghazni, and many other small tribes of the region. Each rug collected from them tells a beautiful story.

ILQ: What is the biggest difficulty you have faced in bringing these carpets and rugs from Afghanistan to Qatar?

Riyaz Bhat (left) in Jalalabad, Afghanistan in 2005. / Image credit: Riyaz Bhat

Riyaz: Going to Afghanistan, collecting these rugs from these nomads one by one in person and getting them shipped to Pakistan first by trucks, and then from Pakistan to Qatar by plane. It really is an extremely tiring process.

ILQ: Have you participated in both local and international exhibitions?

Waji Khan, cousin of Riyaz Bhat, describes one of the rugs available in the shop.

Riyaz: Yes, I have participated in both local and international exhibitions and shows. I recently returned from my shows in Houston, Texas, and Arlington, Virginia. These were my 5th and 6th shows in the USA. I have also done many shows for American Women’s Association Qatar, Tuesdays Ladies Group Qatar, Qatar Expat Women, US Embassy Qatar, Exxon Mobil Oil Qatar, Shell Qatar, and many other private shows.

ILQ: Do you have both local and international customers? How do you ship the rugs/carpets to your customers?

On the second floor of The Rugman store.

Riyaz: Yes, we have local and international customers and we ship our rugs all over the world. Our foreign customers are mostly from the USA, Canada, and Europe. We have a very economical door-to-door shipping facility.

ILQ: Why should people own at least one of the carpets/rugs you offer?

A rug inspired by the famous Ardabil Carpet is available at The Rugman store.

Riyaz: Our rugs are not like those commercial rugs you see in many stores. Our rugs are made by nomads and purely handmade using natural resources. These are the rugs that if taken good care of can end up in museums as they are extremely strong.

ILQ: What is the price range of rugs and carpets in your store?

Carpets/rugs and other souvenir items are available at The Rugman store.

Riyaz: It depends on the quality, the material, and the work put into it. Sometimes a very small rug costs much more than a huge rug. But I would say rugs in our collection range from QR 600 up to QR 70,000. It depends on how crazy you are about rugs and how much budget you have.

ILQ: What do you think is the future of handmade tribal rugs and carpets?

Carpets/rugs and other souvenir items are available at The Rugman store.

Riyaz: Carpet weaving is one difficult and time-consuming job. One must be very patient and creative to create rugs. The new generation is not taking it as a vocation, and it’s becoming a dying art. Sad to say, I feel that in the next 30 to 40 years we might not see genuine handmade rugs anymore.

ILQ: What message do you have for the people of Qatar?

Riyaz: Work with all the enthusiasm and confidence in you, and your achievement will just be right there at the corner. Obey and respect the rules and laws of this wonderful country.

Get in touch with Riyaz:

  • Phone: +974 5555 3407, +974 3396 2977
  • Instagram: @rugmanofdoha
  • Facebook: @therugmanofdoha
  • Website: www.the-rugman.com

Cover image credit: Riyaz Bhat

source: http://www.iloveqatar.net / I Love Qatar.net / Home> News / by Marivie / August 03rd, 2021